A Gospel in Her Image

The miraculous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe continues to proclaim the truth of the Incarnation and call people to encounter Christ

By Luis Guevara

Dec. 11, 2025

The original image of Our Lady of Guadalupe imprinted on the cloak of St. Juan Diego is seen in the basilica in Mexico City. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Nearly 500 years ago at Tepeyac Hill — in the northern part of what is now Mexico City — an extraordinary encounter took place that changed the course of history. The year was 1531, just 39 years after Christopher Columbus discovered the New World and 10 years after Hernán Cortés conquered the Aztec empire.

On Dec. 9, the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, a recently baptized Indigenous man, asking him to deliver a message to the head of the newly erected Diocese of Mexico, Bishop-elect Fray Juan de Zumárraga of the Franciscan Order. The bishop prudently questioned Juan Diego’s words and asked him to request a sign from the Queen of Heaven.

Two years earlier, tensions had escalated when the bishop-elect and the clergy denounced the abuse of the Indigenous people by some members of the regional government. The disagreement became so intense that an assassination attempt was made on Zumárraga. He survived and later wrote a letter to King Charles V, lamenting the dire situation in Mexico: “If God does not provide the remedy from his hand, the land is about to be completely lost.”

But on the morning of Tuesday, Dec. 12, 1531, God — through his mother — did provide the requested sign and remedy: the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe imprinted on Juan Diego’s tilma, or cloak. This miraculous image prompted massive conversions among the Indigenous people, who immediately recognized in it a long-awaited message of divine origin. Missionaries at the time estimated, with amazement, that at least 5 million people converted within just four years of the apparition.

As the 500th anniversary of this encounter with God approaches in 2031, the Knights of Columbus continues to renew and expand its longstanding devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe. This devotion is expressed in union with the universal Church, which is currently observing a nine-year intercontinental novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe initiated by Pope Francis in 2022. This historical moment is not merely an opportunity to commemorate the past, but to reinvigorate the Church’s evangelizing mission by imitating Mary’s spiritual motherhood.

In a similar way, Mary’s image — unpainted by human hands and rich in cultural and theological symbolism — is not simply a token of a past miraculous event; it is a living, present image of God’s covenant of love with humanity.

Msgr. Eduardo Chávez, postulator of St. Juan Diego’s cause for canonization and a foremost expert on the Guadalupan event, explains that, more than just a Marian apparition, “the Guadalupe event was, and continues to be, an encounter between God and mankind through the most Blessed Virgin Mary.”

Through the tangible sign of the tilma — bearing the miraculous image of Mary carrying Jesus in her womb — God continues to communicate a message of love, hope and faith that people can see, understand and receive. Wherever the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe is sincerely venerated, God is glorified and made manifest.

“Mary, by her motherly and merciful figure, was a great sign of the closeness of the Father and of Jesus Christ, with whom she invites us to enter into communion,” said St. John Paul II in the apostolic exhortation Ecclesia in America. He recognized the Guadalupan event as “an impressive example of a perfectly inculturated evangelization,” because it is rooted in an encounter, not only with Mary, but with the incarnate Word she carries and reveals.

The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe presents a visual narrative of salvation history. Integrating imagery from sacred Scripture and the Indigenous peoples’ understanding of the universe, it conveys the essence of the Gospel — from the Incarnation of the Lord in Mary’s womb to his victorious resurrection.

The event and image represent a mode of evangelization based not only on preaching or catechesis, but on encounter, on symbol, on beauty — and above all on the maternal presence of Mary.

And the Church continues to reflect on this Marian model of evangelization today. In its recent document Mater Populi Fidelis (The Mother of the Faithful People of God), the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith affirms that Mary’s motherhood is “joined to the salvific mystery of Christ as an instrument willed by the Father in his plan of salvation” (15).

The document further notes that “Eastern Marian iconography, as a kerygma” — that is, a presentation of the core Gospel message — “seeks to be a visual translation of the titles that are uniquely applied to the Virgin.” Mary does not compete with Christ, but “is inserted into the mystery of Christ through the Incarnation.” This is clearly the case with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe as well. It, too, is a kerygma, a visual translation of the gifts bestowed upon Mary, especially that of being the Mother of God and mother of all the living. It is an image that evangelizes.

This is precisely what Our Lady of Guadalupe told Juan Diego, as recorded in the Nican Mopohua, the earliest written account of the apparition: “I am truly your compassionate mother, yours and all of the people who live together in this land, and all of the other people of different ancestries, those who love me, those who cry to me, those who seek me, those who trust in me.”

Guadalupe is the image of the Mother of God — whose motherhood extends to all humanity. Though Pope John Paul II declared Our Lady of Guadalupe patroness of the Americas and elevated her feast day for the entire hemisphere in 1999, her message has always transcended geographic and cultural boundaries.

Her blessed image is not a devotion reserved for one people. It is a living proclamation of the Incarnation — a visual echo of the Word made flesh, offered again and again to all who seek to see and believe. This is why countless people have found hope in her image, and why, in her silence, many have heard the call to conversion.

The growing interest in and devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe is deeply tied to the Church’s mission today. In a world wounded by sin, increasing division, and distrust, Mary’s motherhood and maternal guidance to Christ — best articulated and expressed in the maternal love of the Church — reminds us that God does not approach us through fear or domination, but through love and invitation.

Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly delivers remarks before the solemn reconsecration of the Knights of Columbus to Our Lady of Guadalupe on Feb. 3, 2023. The event followed Mass celebrated by Supreme Chaplain Archbishop William Lori at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City, the same place where Carl Anderson led the first consecration to Our Lady of Guadalupe during his installation as supreme knight 22 years earlier. (Photo by Tamino Petelinšek)

Recognizing her enduring role in evangelization and her patronage throughout the world, Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly led the Knights of Columbus in renewing its consecration to Our Lady of Guadalupe in 2023 at her basilica in Mexico City. “Our Lady inspires us and guides us in all of our efforts — especially those for the sake of the unborn and the most vulnerable,” said the supreme knight on that occasion. “We take constant solace in knowing that she is here, she who is our mother.”

Over the past two decades, the Order has promoted devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe through a wide range of initiatives — including the Guadalupe Festival (2009), the Guadalupe Celebration (2012), the Silver Rose Program, multiple Pilgrim Icon Programs, the short film Our Lady of Guadalupe: Woman of the Eucharist, and more recently through Sons in the Son, a 40-day consecration to Our Lady of Guadalupe. Through these and other efforts, Knights around the world have brought her image to thousands of parishes and families, sharing what was given at Tepeyac: a transforming encounter.

With Mary pointing the way, let us, as Knights, renew our commitment to spreading her maternal message through our works of charity — and imitate St. Juan Diego, who labored tirelessly as a missionary disciple for the conversion of his culture.

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LUIS F. GUEVARA is a collaborator with the Higher Institute of Guadalupan Studies (Instituto Superior de Estudios Guadalupanos) and a member of Santa María de Guadalupe Council 15891 at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.